Running your service during Ramadan: ftour, evenings and shour
Published
During Ramadan a café or restaurant lives a completely different day: few guests in daylight, a huge wave at ftour, then long evenings and sometimes shour. The month is best prepared as a season of its own. Here is how to plan hours, kitchen, team and till.
Start the free trialSet your hours well before day one
Choose your rhythm early: closed in the day or open in the afternoon for takeaway, ftour service, evenings, and maybe shour. Each option needs a different team and different stock, and your guests need to know it before the first night.
Post the new hours on the door, on your social pages and on your Google listing one or two weeks ahead. A guest who finds the door shut on the first night does not come back to check the next day.
Think about where your working day ends. If you close after shour, your day ends at dawn: counting the till and resetting the room happen then, not at midnight.
Ftour: everything ready at the call to prayer
Ftour does not forgive delays, because everyone wants to eat at the same minute. A set menu makes life easy: harira, dates, chebakia, boiled eggs, msemen or baghrir, a juice and a hot drink. It is prepared ahead and served to every table at once.
Just before the time, put out what can wait on the table: dates, water, chebakia, bread. Keep the harira hot and serve it in the first minutes. The kitchen works in batches, not order by order.
Take ftour bookings with the number of guests and confirm them in the afternoon. A table of six that does not show means six set menus made for nothing.
Evenings: a different crowd, a different pace
After ftour and prayers the room fills again: families, friends, young people out late. They order fewer dishes and more tea, coffee, juice, crêpes and pastries. Shape the evening menu around that.
Atmosphere matters: softer light, calm music, a well set terrace. Guests stay a long time, so walk past regularly to offer a second round instead of waiting to be called.
Shour: only if you can sustain it
Serving shour can build a loyal crowd, especially in busy neighbourhoods. It also means a team awake until dawn. If you do it, keep a short menu (msemen, harcha, eggs, cheese, tea, coffee, juice) and a dedicated team, not the ftour team.
Announce a clear last order time, well before imsak, so the kitchen can serve everyone in time.
Your team is fasting too
Most of your waiters and cooks fast. Plan shifts so nobody works straight from ftour to shour, and give them time for their own ftour, in turns, right after the first rush. A team that has eaten and rested makes fewer mistakes.
Hold a short briefing at the start of each week: the set menu, the bookings and above all who does what at the call to prayer. At that exact moment, everyone needs to know where to stand.
Stock and suppliers
Ramadan staples (dates, chebakia, flour, eggs, milk, oranges) go much faster. Order before day one, and keep a backup supplier for chebakia and pastries if you do not make them yourself.
Count what is left every night. Guests' habits shift from week to week, so adjust your orders instead of repeating the first week's.
Common mistakes
Announcing the hours too late, keeping the full menu at ftour, having the same person work from ftour to shour, forgetting the Google listing, and closing the till at midnight while service runs until 3 am. Each one is fixed before the first day of the month.
Putting it into practice with Tablilo
Tablilo has optional Ramadan opening hours, and the day start hour can be set late, for example 7 am for a venue open until shour. That is when order numbers restart, sold-out items come back and waiters enter their PIN again.
The dark Soirée look suits Ramadan nights, and you can switch looks whenever you like. If the chebakia runs out, mark the ingredient sold out and every item that uses it is greyed until the next day. At ftour, orders go straight to the kitchen screen. The trial is free.
Related features
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